Draft:Sylvester G. Shearman

Sylvester G. Shearman (1802 – January 3, 1868) was a justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court from November 2, 1854 until his death in January 1868.

"Judge Shearman was born in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, in 1802. He practised law at Wickford, and was elected Representative to the Rhode Island General Assembly at the first election under the Constitution, and in 1848 was Speaker of the House. He was an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1855 to 1868.

While a member of the court, he was assigned to hold the Court of Common Pleas. "He was a man," says Mr. Payne, in his "Reminiscences of the Rhode Island Bar," "without any pretence to superior sanctity, vast acquirements, or greatness of any kind; he was a good man, knew what was worth knowing, and discharged faithfully the duties of all the positions in which it had pleased God or the people to place him." He had a keen but homely wit, and a fund of illustration and anecdote at command. Though a dangerous man to cross swords with in repartee, he "had no malice in his nature and no sting in his wit." Mr. Payne gives the following, among many other examples of his ready wit. When James T. Brady, impressed by the ability of Mr. Shearman, said to him, "Why do you stay in such a little place as Wickford? Why don't you remove to New York, where there is a wider field for your talents?" Mr. Shearman replied, naming certain disreputable classes in Saxon tongue, "Take these people out of New York, and it is not much bigger than Wickford, after all." When he wanted to express the longevity of a certain family, he said: "I never knew a --- who did not outlive the Almighty's Statute of Limitations, his friends, his fortune, and his reputation.""

Of North Kingstown.